


A Life Of Nightmares

by Alexdoesthings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Aftermath of Torture, BAMF Stiles, Brainwashing, Dark Agenda, Derek Hale is Stiles Stilinski's Anchor, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Muteness, Non-Linear Narrative, Protective Scott, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Scott is a Good Friend, Sheriff Stilinski Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 06:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9223454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexdoesthings/pseuds/Alexdoesthings
Summary: Stiles is abducted for almost eight months and turns up with a mysteriously flat affect and a fascination with reading boring physics textbooks and target practice with a pen. It becomes clear that whoever took him isn't done with him yet though and his father and friends scramble to figure out who is behind it, what they want, and how to help Stiles return to himself.





	

It took them eight months to find Stiles. It wasn’t really any of them that found him either, Stiles walked into town on his own, covered in mud and blood. A cruiser picked him up and took him immediately to the Sheriff who almost collapsed with relief upon hearing that Stiles was back, that he was safe.

Stiles eyes were blank, flat. It was unnerving. Everyone who’d ever met Stiles, even in vague passing, knew he was a full of energy and life. He always had something to say, some witticism to add, and he was constantly moving as though staying still was a plague. But this was not the Stiles they knew; this shell of a person who had not spoken, hadn’t even so much as shifted position since he was sat down in the chair ten minutes earlier.

He had wordlessly submitted to a physical examination, staring at the opposite wall the entire time with little more than a twitch when the doctor touched him. His father had to turn away several times to keep from giving in to tears again. He could hear the echo of Stiles as he’d been before, cracking jokes at the doctor and the whole situation, and it ached to see his son so drained of his sarcastic streak. The Sheriff had never expected to miss that aspect of his son’s personality but he desperately did now, just wanting his son to be okay.

They found that Stiles was voluntarily mute, vocal cords, tongue, everything perfectly intact. He was not as bruised as they had expected either. There were a few finger shaped areas blackening on his arm where someone had grabbed him recently but that was the newest. He had been beaten, long and often, but not of late, all those bruises long faded by now. There were scars though. Some of them were haphazard, meant for the sole purpose of pain and punishment, but others were more deliberate. Many of them were already starting to heal over or would in time, becoming little more than a white impression on his skin, but others were deep and jagged, permanently etched deep into his flesh. Most of those he could cover up with long pants and sleeves but there was one that marred the edge of his face. It was four long marks that started just above the left edge of his lip and were spaced a few centimeters apart along his cheek. They spanned down his neck from there and ended somewhere just below his clavicle, looking disturbingly like claw marks.

The doctor informed the Sheriff later that those particular scars had been made with some serious care and deliberation, days, maybe even weeks, of work and different tools to make just the right impression into Stiles’s skin. At some point he’d also suffered far worse injuries, internal bleeding and multiple broken bones, all of which had been taken care of with professional care, which was as much a concern as a relief. The only reason he was alive was because they wanted him that way.

Stiles sat in the chair in the interrogation room, staring at the edge of the table top. There was a pad of paper and a pen but he had touched none of it. He hadn’t moved or responded to anyone as they had gently tried to question him about his abduction. His father stared helplessly at his son before an idea hit him. He gathered all the information from the case and laid it out in front of Stiles; hoping old habits, did indeed, die hard.

Stiles eyes fell disinterestedly on the papers spread out before him.

“Come on, Stiles,” his father urged, his voice edged with a desperate plea.

Stiles gaze flicked half heartedly in his direction before returning to the pages of notes. It took him a minute, but he eventually sat forward and everyone in the room reacted, surprised by his movement. Stiles ignored them and started grabbing papers and skimming them before throwing them aside, sometimes with a disdainful look on his face. They watched silently as Stiles made quick work of the papers. He grabbed a pen after he’d thrown out what he didn’t like and started marking the pages with strikes, sometimes angry ones. He finally made it to a map and circled a spot in the preserve before sitting back and staring distantly again with his arms crossed over his stomach.

His father grabbed the map and frowned at it. “We checked the entire preserve, Stiles,” he said confused, “there’s nothing there.”

Stiles closed his eyes for a second and breathed out his nose in an audible sound. Then it clicked in his father’s head and the Sheriff turned to one of his deputies and ordered, “Get me a more detailed map of that area.”

Once they returned with it and it was set in front of Stiles, he glanced at it with that same emotionless detached disinterest as he had everything else they’d put in front of him. He grabbed the pen again, but instead of marking the map he sat back in his chair, eerily still again. They waited in silence for three long minutes before Stiles took the pen between two fingers, like a dart, and lobbed it into the air. It landed and left an inky blot on the thin line that denoted a little dirt road. He must have hit where he intended because the corner of Stiles mouth twitched for a second like he was going to smile before his face fell back to its lifeless state.

“This is it,” his dad asked, pointing to the spot and looking at Stiles for confirmation, “This is where they dropped you?”

Stiles met his eyes for a second before dropping his gaze back to the table again. That was the only confirmation the Sheriff was going to get, he knew, but it was a lot considering what they had been getting out of him so far. He turned back to his deputies and started barking orders, determined to catch up to his son’s captors.

 

 

Stiles was released from the hospital after extensive examination on the grounds that his physical health was excellent, especially considering what he’d been through. He went to regular counseling sessions, but said little there.

He wasn’t at all the Stiles he had been. His didn’t care for the foods he once loved, eating only when necessary and strictly what would give his body sustenance to survive. There was no pleasure to it anymore. In fact he took no pleasure in anything he did as far as anyone could tell. He would sit for hours staring at nothing, locked in his own head with thoughts no one could even guess at. He would read some of the time and write essays to a curriculum that he alone seemed to know. The most energy anyone ever saw out of him was when he would do target practice with various objects around him, usually with a pen and a pad of paper. None of it ever gave them any clues though. His energized, sarcastic personality was gone; it was as though Stiles had been a wall of riotous color and texture that someone had made flat and painted over white.

He was as observant as ever though, sometimes surprising everyone around him by throwing in a detailed observation before returning to whatever he’d been doing. It was near impossible to get him talk very much beyond these kinds of random bursts though.

Stiles rarely reacted to external stimuli. Sudden sounds or movements did not bother him in the least. Even if everyone else in the room jumped, he just glanced over, as he did everything, with disinterest. He was cataloging the things he saw but it was unclear what he was doing with this information and if he really believed any of it.

“Stiles,” his psychiatrist asked gently as he stared out the window. He turned his head to look at her as she continued her question, “you know you’re home and you’re safe, don’t you?”

Stiles gave an automatic sort of jerk of his head to indicate an affirmative before turning to stare out the window again.

“Stiles, you need to talk to me,” she said coaxingly after a long beat of silence, “I’m here to help you.”

He glanced at her, not moving his head. He blinked and his eyes returned to the same point outside.

“I’m fine,” he answered robotically.

“I’d like to believe you,” she said gently and he sighed quietly in some semblance of annoyance at her insistence, “but you were held against your will for eight months. No one could be ‘fine’ after that.”

Stiles didn’t respond to that and after another long silence she changed tactics a little. “A lot of people in your type of situation think, ‘why me?’ Is that what you’re thinking, Stiles?”

“No,” Stiles replied unequivocally, “It’s obvious.”

“And why’s that,” she asked, puzzled.

The corner of his mouth twitched as though he were going to smile, like he found her inquiry funny. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” he said and left it at that.

 

 

“I’m sad to report I’ve made no progress with him,” the psychiatrist informed the Sheriff, “he refuses to speak to me or let me build any kind of trust with him.”

The Sheriff rubbed an agitated hand across his tired face, worried.

“Isn’t there a group therapy he can go to or something,” he asked, grasping at straws.

“If I thought it would help I would suggest it,” she said, honestly, “but I really don’t think that Stiles would respond to that either.”

“He doesn’t respond to anything,” Stiles’s father burst out, hopeless and miserable, running a hand over his hair.

“You have to give him time,” she soothed gently, “He’s been through a lot.”

“I know,” the Sheriff said, his voice weak and tired, “I just wish I could do something.”

 

 

They decided that allowing Stiles back into school might not be a good idea right away, but he could at least do online classes for the time being to catch up until he was ready to be among his peers again. To determine what level classes to stick him in, they had him come in after hours and take a test.

Stiles stared disinterestedly at the packet in front of him, as he did most things, but after a moment he sighed quietly and picked up the pencil. He was finished in half the time and when the test was corrected they had to double check. They passed it around to all the staff and then onto to the police. He hadn’t gotten a single answer wrong. Stiles had even written an essay on the back, in perfect grammatical form, detailing a brief the history of string theory. They gave him another test, far harder this time, and were again bewildered by the results.

Not but an hour after the school had called the Sheriff to inform him of Stiles’s soaring success on the second test, a package arrived at the station. It was full of essays, worksheets, and textbooks all written on in Stiles’s handwriting. They scoured every inch, but there was nothing to tell them who sent it. The dates on the pages indicated that he’d started two months into his abduction and worked hard every day since.

It suddenly made sense why Stiles had been so studious since he’d returned despite not having any real makeup work. That was disturbing to say the least, as was the blood found on some of the pages, copious at the beginning but less so as time went on. The lab work came back confirming that it was Stiles’s blood. The Sheriff was pacing his office in agitation, frustrated that these people were playing with them; even now, they were still with Stiles even if he was not with them.

“Is there something wrong, sir,” one of his deputies, who had stopped at the open door, asked cautiously.

“They advanced him through two years of college courses,” the Sheriff burst out loudly, irrationally angry at everything, but especially at how helpless he felt, “Why the hell would they do that?”

 

 

Stiles didn’t so much as twitch in surprise when Scott slid in through his window unexpectedly, eyes glowing yellow in the moonlight. He didn’t even give him a quizzical look, just glanced up from his reading for a second before returning his eyes to it like Scott’s presence was of no consequence whatsoever.

“Stiles,” Scott said, relieved, “I can’t believe you’re really back.”

Stiles’s eyebrow twitched upward for a second in a sarcastic gesture, an echo of his former self but nothing more, not looking up from his book.

Scott stepped forward into the room, still talking, “Mom told me to give you some space or I would have come sooner. It’s so good to see you, man.”

He paused, waiting for Stiles to say something. Stiles did nothing of the sort, turning a page of the dry looking textbook he was reading. Scott found he was unnerved. He had expected Stiles to be different, someone didn’t disappear for eight months and then show up again perfectly normal, after all. He’d been warned about the scars and they did draw his eyes, but that wasn’t what was throwing him off. Stiles’s silence and his stillness, having known him so long in his constantly energized state, were nerve gratingly absent. The difference was so out of character, so starkly, eerily _not Stiles_. He finally took in the input of his other senses and wrinkled his nose at the smell. He took a cautious step toward Stiles, eyes wary now.

“You don’t smell right,” Scott commented uneasily, his face contorted in confusion.

Stiles met his eyes emotionlessly and it was obvious he was waiting for Scott to elaborate or leave.

“You smell like,” he struggled for words to describe it for a moment before saying, “not Stiles.”

Stiles seemed to have become bored with Scott again, going back to his book and turning the page.

Scott’s voice was quiet and concerned as he asked, “What happened to you?”

Stiles stared at him, expression unreadable, for a long minute. Scott was expecting a lot of things to come out of his best friend’s mouth but he was not expecting the cold dismissal that he received.

“Shut up, Scott,” Stiles said disinterestedly, directing his attention back to his book.

 

 

They had been cuddling in silence for a long time before Allison finally couldn’t take the troubled silence that hung around Scott any longer. “Scott,” she said, getting his attention. Her eyes asked the question for her and Scott was quiet for a moment, just looking at her.

“There’s something wrong with Stiles,” Scott finally said, voicing what had been troubling him for so long.

Allison ran a soothing hand through his hair and said, quietly, “It’ll take some time for him to get past this. They had him for almost a year.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he said, brow furrowed in puzzlement.

 

 

“Stiles,” Derek said, harshly, grabbing his shoulder and turning him.

Stiles stared back at him with those maddeningly emotionless, watchful eyes. Derek frowned at him, frustrated. Derek wanted to pull the old Stiles out of this ruined shell, he wanted answers, he wanted _something_. His hand was still on Stiles but the contact did not connect them. Stiles was unreachable now, far from Derek in a way that couldn’t be bridged. Even his scent was alien.

Stiles voice was as flat as his expression as he asked, “What?”

Derek was getting angry, he could feel it boiling out of his frustration and his helplessness. He grabbed Stiles’s other arm and held him like he wanted to shake Stiles out of this. He knew that wasn’t how it worked, but he wanted it to. Stiles glanced at the firm hand around his bicep, unconcerned, before looking back at Derek. They stared for a long moment, Derek trying to get under control and Stiles just _watching_ him.

“You didn’t come,” Stiles said, the words falling from his mouth. It was an accusation but there wasn’t much venom to it, as though the bitterness had been beaten out of him as well. He should have sounded betrayed, but he didn’t sound like much of anything anymore.

That simple stated fact deflated Derek. His eyes caught on the four long scars under Stiles’s eye, disappearing into the neck of his sweatshirt. They looked so much like the marks his own claws would made that he might have left the mark himself. It was a physical reminder that Derek had failed him.

He glanced away as he said, quietly, knowing it wasn’t enough, “I tried.”

“They took me because of you,” he continued as though in a trance, digging deeper at Derek, who flinched as though Stiles at struck him, “and you never heard me screaming.”

“I’m sorry,” Derek said, words little more than a breath. His hand was shaking on Stiles’s arm and his shoulders slumped as the weight of the guilt settled over him. Stiles eyes did not soften with pity or understanding; they remained that cold emotionless flat brown they had been.

“Don’t look so guilty about it,” Stiles said and there was something about his voice that made Derek look up at him again, a glimmer of emotion through the monotone.

His eyes locked with Derek’s for a second, still as unwavering as ever. Then there was a hand fisting in the cotton of Derek’s shirt and he closed his eyes, ready for the blow he felt he fully deserved. He might not even let it heal for awhile, might wear Stiles’s mark on his skin as a show of penance, even though it would make up for nothing.

Stiles did not hit him though. It took Derek a second to realize that Stiles’s face was unusually close to his and then abruptly those were Stiles’s lips against his. Derek didn’t react, didn’t know how he would have anyway. He had been prepared let Stiles do as he needed, to serve justice on Derek as he saw fit, but this was the furthest he’d had in mind.

It didn’t last long and suddenly Stiles lips were gone from Derek’s and he was walking away. Derek was still trying to understand what happened, eyebrows drawn together in an utterly stunned look to match his thoughts. He was rooted to the spot, held by the shock and the fresh memory that replayed with each acknowledgement of his senses. He could smell Stiles’s scent on him, mixing with his own in the air. It was still alien, but there was a hint of the true Stiles underneath that had not been there before. He could still feel Stiles’s warm lips against his and he knew that he would taste him there for hours to come. He’d heard the subtle pick up in the speed of Stiles’s heartbeat that nothing else had managed to elicit from him. He could see the change in Stiles walk as he marched determinedly through the trees, it wasn’t much but there was a new tension to his muscles and an extra few inches in the length of his stride.

 

 

Stiles’s father was woken in the early hours of the morning to Stiles screaming. He jumped out of bed and grabbed his gun as he raced into his son’s room. Stiles had been back for months now and he had yet to cry out in sleep, complain of nightmares, or appear to have lost any sleep at all. The door was closed to Stiles’s room, another oddity. He heard a loud crash from inside. He turned the knob and tried to open it but the door refused to budge. He threw his shoulder against it calling Stiles’s name over his screaming.

It stopped abruptly and he asked, urgently, “Stiles, are you okay?”

It was quiet for a few seconds before Stiles’s emotionless reply, “I’m fine.”

He sounded perfectly normal, or at least normal as he ever was these days, but the Sheriff wasn’t convinced, he threw his weight against the door again, trying and failing to open it.

Stiles repeated the words before there was the thump of a body falling to the floor and the sound of broken glass being crushed.

“Stiles,” he yelled desperately, shoving at the door again. This time it budged just enough that he could get an arm in and shove away the chair pressed against the door. He burst into the dark room and saw Stiles lying face down on the carpet. He dropped down beside his son, avoiding the broken pieces of the fallen lamp.

His stomach dropped as he lifted Stiles gently into his arms and found blood running down his chin, unrelated to the spray of small glass shards peppering his face. They sparkled eerily in the light from the hallway as blood dripped onto the carpet.

 

 

“The Sheriff was just in here asking about this,” Deaton explained, pushing the glossy photo paper across to them, “I thought you two might be interested.”

Derek and Scott who both bent their heads over the picture to get a good look. It was of the back of a familiar, newly shaved head. There was an unfamiliar mark there, a black inking of a warped key about the size of a coin set off center.

“How’d they miss a new tattoo during the physical examination,” Scott asked, frowning at the picture.

“He had a lot of injuries and it was very well hidden,” Deaton explained.

Derek straightened, his arms crossing over his chest and his expression grim. Deaton’s eyes followed him.

“You know what it means,” Deaton asked, though he already knew the answer to his question.

“He’s a sleeper,” Derek stated, darkly.

“He’s a what,” Scott asked, thrown.

“A sleeper,” Derek repeated impatiently, “There’s a small group of fanatics who abduct humans close to werewolves and torture them into submission. I heard something happened to their leader and they disbanded, but that’s definitely the symbol they use to mark their victims. Which means they brainwashed Stiles and threw him back into his old life to attack us on command.”

“But what was the point,” Scott asked, uncomprehending, “Why spend almost a year brainwashing him to kill us when they could have just done it themselves? And why hasn’t he done anything yet?”

“I don’t know,” Derek confessed, “but we have to stop him.”

“How,” Scott asked, a challenge in his voice.

Derek’s cold, hard look said it all and it sent a wave of anger through Scott’s being.

“No,” Scott said, stubbornly.

“They made him into a killing machine. It’s him or us, Scott.”

“Then I choose him,” Scott insisted, “We didn’t save him before, but we can now.”

“That’s the problem,” Derek said angrily, “he wasn’t saved. We might as well have left him there to die. He doesn’t trust any of us. He doesn’t have a reason to.”

Scott’s voice was vehement and filled with determination as he said, “Then we’ll give him one.”

“Like what,” Derek asked petulantly.

“I don’t know,” Scott admitted, “but he’s my best friend; I’m not giving up on him.”

“You might not have a choice,” Derek said dangerously.

“That’s not necessarily true,” Deaton’s cool, knowing voice cut through the room before Scott could rebut furiously. The two of them turned back to Deaton, like they had forgotten he was there.

Having gained their full attention, he explained, “Stiles’s outburst proves that he isn’t completely subservient. If we can find what got through to him, we might be able to figure out a way to sever their control. Have either of you noticed him acting out in other ways since he returned?”

Scott went silent, frowning, and searched his memory. Derek, however, didn’t have to think hard for an example.

“He was acting strange when we talked a few days ago,” Derek answered simply.

“What triggered it,” Deaton asked, calm and analytical.

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted.

“What happened,” Scott asked urgently.

Derek was taken with the sudden desire not to say anything. The whole scene and the display from Stiles felt too intimate to share. He shook the thought angrily and took a deep breath.

“He was talking about how it was my fault he was taken,” Derek said, his fists clenching at the memory of those cold words, “But then he told me not to feel guilty about it. That’s when he… changed.”

 

The other two fell into a contemplative silence. Derek couldn’t look at either of them. That flash of something in Stiles’s eyes and the ghost of his lips pressed to Derek's were playing before him on a loop.

“It’s got to be you, Derek,” Scott said, realizing the truth, “you’re the one messing with his sleeper programming.”

 

 

Stiles disappeared for three days. The Sheriff was frantic. He barely slept, pouring over every line Stiles had left unscathed in his notes. Nothing added up for him though. There were so many gaps in his knowledge and all he could think was how disappointed Claudia would be in him for letting this happen to their son a second time.

 

 

It was Scott who found him walking through the woods toward what was once the Hale property. The way Stiles was approaching him though, it didn’t seem as though Stiles was the one being found here. He had a strange, slow purpose to his walk. His eyes were sharp and focused completely on Scott as they had not been since he’d returned. The scent of him drifting toward Scott told him this was a stranger wearing his friend’s face. The most worrying aspect of this picture, however, was the object in Stiles’s left hand.

“What is that thing,” Scott asked warily as Stiles stopped some fifteen feet in front of him.

The dappled light through the trees didn’t land on the eight foot long pole in any way that Scott had come to understand the play of light on objects. The opaque red body seemed to at once reject and absorb the light around it and cast no shadow at all. Something about this phenomenon made it so he could not tell if the end was pointed like a spear or flat like a staff. The body was wide enough that there was an inch of space between Stiles’s thumb and fingers as they wrapped around it, but it was clearly very light as he held it easily in one hand. It made the hairs at the back of Scott’s neck stand on end. His instincts were screaming at him that he needed to run from this threat _now_.

“You should call Derek,” Stiles said, his voice monotone.

“Okay,” Scott said slowly, fighting down the urge to step back or drop into a defensive position.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, not taking his eyes off Stiles and his strange weapon. Calling for backup wasn’t a bad idea right now, Derek would have some idea what to do here.

He’d barely raised his phone when Stiles raised his weapon and pointed with his other hand at Scott. Like he was throwing a javelin, Stiles launched his arm forward. The weapon did not leave his hand, but Scott’s phone was ripped away. He turned his head to look over his shoulder after it. It was stuck forlornly to a tree several yards away by a needle of red that had cracked the screen.

“Not like that,” Stiles said coldly.

Scott’s eyes traveled slowly back to Stiles. His eyes were devoid of life and he was pointing at Scott again with his free hand, weapon raised. The howl was already clawing at Scott’s throat.

 

 

Derek slid to a stop on the leaf strewn ground. His limbs turned to lead at the sight before him. It had only been a few minutes since he had heard Scott’s howl and yet Scott was hanging limply from a tree, arms and torso pinned by a series of what looked, from a distance, like thin red lines. His heart beat sluggishly in his chest and his head flopped forward, unmoving. Derek glanced in every direction on high alert, but there seemed to be no one among the trees. He felt eyes on him though as he crept toward Scott’s lifeless body.

Derek put his back to Scott’s tree so he had as much of a view of his surroundings as possible. He said Scott’s name quietly, not wanting to be heard but needing to get a response from him. Scott’s eyes fluttered tiredly and sought him out. He didn’t seem to recognize Derek for a second, delirious.

“Derek,” Scott asked, the word slurred and difficult to make out.

“What happened,” Derek asked, reaching for one of the long, red needles stuck into Scott’s right arm.

“He won’t listen to me and he’s got,” but the rest of Scott’s words were drowned out by Derek’s cry of pain as something sliced into his arm. Another of the strange red needles stuck into the tree, having just grazed him. Derek leapt out of the way, as far from Scott as he could manage, barely avoiding another that sailed off into the trees.

His eyes sought out the source of the attack. Stiles had stepped out into the open some thirty feet away and was jabbing the air over and over with a strange, opaque, red weapon Derek had never seen before. His other hand was pointing and kept shifting with seemingly no pattern. Derek dodged, but those that came near him didn’t seem meant to hit him.

“What do you think you’re doing,” Derek demanded, throwing an arm back to indicate Scott’s prone form, “That’s your best friend.”

Stiles paused, his head tilted a little to one side and his eyes empty as they stared at Derek. Then he grabbed the pole with both hands, spun it over his head, and slammed the end into the ground. There was a strange high pitched sound that reverberated between the trees. Derek just barely caught sight of a strange flash of red out of the corner of his eye before his world was cut apart by red lines sailing through the air. He started running as the barrage fell on him, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.

He fell to the ground as his left leg gave out on him, staring over at the wreckage of spikes where he’d just been standing. He grimaced at the thought of what would have become of him if he’d been even a second slower. He shook the thought and took quick stock of his injuries. His was covered in scratches that stung horribly, but they were nothing compared to the agony in his leg. One of the long red needles was stuck into his left thigh. He braced himself and reached to rip it out, but the substance he couldn’t identify burned his hand like it was made of acid.

Knowing he likely had only seconds before Stiles threw another attack at him, Derek sliced into it with his claws in a quick motion. The red substance parted easily, not even jarring the wound as it broke off leaving a more manageable section embedded in his leg. He scrambled to regain his footing despite the debilitating pain.

He threw himself behind a tree as another attack grazed his cheek. The pain of moving his leg almost wiped all thought from his head. He dug one set of claws deep into the tree holding his weight, the bark protesting and splintering. He grit his teeth and reached down to his leg once more to remove it. He forced himself not to think about it, took hold of the white hot material, and pulled with all his strength.

It came free easily but, were his claws not embedded in the bark, he would have collapsed, his vision blacking out for a second. He threw it aside angrily and took several steadying breathes. The healing was slow and would likely take hours, but he didn’t seem to be bleeding very much.

“No need to hide,” Stiles called, eerily calm.

Scott cried out in pain and Derek glanced around his tree to see a new red line impaling Scott’s wrist. Derek disengaged his claws and ran back into plain sight to draw Stiles’s attention away from his captive. His leg ached but without the rod stuck in it he could move again. Stiles turned toward him, hand pointing and weapon ready.

“Stiles, stop,” Derek commanded, “We’re not your enemy. Let us help.”

Stiles blinked twice and his lips parted like he was going to speak. Then his teeth clacked together and Derek saw his muscles tense to throw another attack. A series of three red needles flew toward him. Derek dodged two easily but only narrowly missing being impaled by the third as his foot slipped on a patch of wet leaves. He caught himself and raced in the other direction. For all the emotion his face betrayed, Stiles might have been back in his room staring at the wall.

Derek narrowed his eyes at Stiles, weighing his options. He was clearly wielding something meant for long to medium range attacks. If he was fast enough he could get in close and disarm Stiles.

He called on all his speed and tore across the space between them in a sharp zigzag pattern. Stiles’s eyes followed him, but he seemed to already have read Derek’s plan of attack. As Derek reached for it, Stiles smashed the weapon into his face.

The impact was disproportionate and made a loud, horrible noise as it connected. Pain lanced through his body and Derek stumbled several steps back in shock. A hand clutched instinctively at the injury just below his right eye. Blood seeped between his fingers and he was certain the bone had fractured. The corner of Stiles’s mouth twitched in amusement for a split second as he took in Derek’s confusion.

Another red shaft impaled his elbow before Derek realized Stiles had even done anything. He couldn’t move the joint and pain piercing his body. He turned to run, but his leg collapsed under him as another attack stabbed through his knee. Stiles took two steps to his left to bring him in front of Derek again and drove another attack into Derek’s shoulder. His back hit the ground and he lost count of the rods being stabbed into every available inch of skin. Derek’s vision went white and everything became a haze of agony.

It stopped abruptly after what might have been an eternity. Derek struggled to draw breath as pain stole the air from his lungs. He blinked blearily up at the shape above him. Stiles was standing over him, weapon trained on Derek’s head. He did his best to look defiant, not able to move any part of his body. Several long seconds passed. Stiles’s arm began to tremble and his brow furrowed. Then everything about him became still except his searching eyes roving over Derek’s face. He lowered his weapon.

“Stay down, Derek,” Stiles ordered, his voice lifeless and cold.

 

 

“It is a code,” Lydia said decisively, her perfectly manicured nails laying the seemingly asinine essay on giant squash and her own notes on the Sheriff’s kitchen table.

The Sheriff blinked down at it. “Are you sure,” he asked, glancing back at her.

“Positive,” she answered.

He turned his attention back to the papers, picking up the first page of Stiles’s essay and Lydia’s corresponding page of notes. It’s the description of a woman Stiles referred to only as Keeper.

“We’ve had our people working for weeks to find a code in his work, I knew he had to be trying to tell us something, but we’ve only come up with gibberish so far,” he mused.

“That’s because you can’t decode it without his letter,” Lydia explained.

“And he gave it to you because he knew you’d be smart enough to crack it,” the Sheriff finished her thought.

Tears started to form in his eyes as he thought as his brilliant son working so hard to get a message to him. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, trying to get ahold of himself.

“I’m going to take this back to the station and see what else we can find. Thank you so much, Lydia,” Stiles’s father said earnestly.

She looked away, spinning a lock of hair around her finger like his gratitude made her uncomfortable.

“I just hope it helps you find him,” she said, honestly.

 

 

Derek must have passed out because when he became aware of his surroundings again, there was a new heartbeat. The scent of the new arrival was so similar to the strange one Stiles carried these days.

“You’ve done so well, honey,” a slow, silken female voice Derek had never heard before said not far from him.

He could barely raise his head to catch a glimpse of her. Her nails and lips were blood red. Her hair was cut in short curls around her dainty face. She had draped herself over Stiles’s shoulders and was surveying his work with a smile that sent a chill down Derek’s spine.

“Finish it and we can go,” she murmured against his ear and drew back.

Stiles didn’t move though. His eyes were still staring vacantly somewhere between Derek and Scott. Her expression began to sour the longer he did nothing.

“This is the _key_. Earn your _fangs_ ,” she said, her voice full of acid as she emphasized certain words. Derek stopped listening to the seemingly random string of nonsense as she continued and instead watched Stiles. The words seemed to mean something to him. His heart rate was speeding, his eyes were wide, and every muscle in his body looked tense.

“Stiles,” his name came out of Derek’s raw throat like it was made of barbs.

Stiles’s eyes fell on him immediately, desperate.

Every word was a struggle, but Derek continued, determined, “You don’t have to–”

“Quiet, abomination,” the woman shrieked.

There was an insane fury in her eyes as she flew toward him, pulling a wicked looking knife from within her black fatigues. Derek was trapped, helpless, and unable to move as she loomed over him. She grabbed the handle with both hands to drive it downward, but she never got the chance.

Between one blink and the next Derek saw a needle of red pierce through her neck. She gagged, her knife falling as she reached clumsily up to the wound. She turned to look back at Stiles, her mouth working in a garbled attempt at speech. She fell to the ground, silent, another red spike between her eyes.

Stiles approached slowly, his weapon still at the ready and trained on her. There was a haunted look about him. He threw one last needle of red into her chest, right through her heart. Her body spasmed with the impact, but otherwise she was still.

Stiles nodded to himself, the motion jerky. He swung his weapon in a low arc over Derek. The red rods broke easily against it like he was shattering thin shards of glass or knocking icicles off the bottom of a car. He dropped his weapon beside them and took a firm hold of Derek. Derek cried out in agony as Stiles pulled him up, every point where he’d been impaled screaming at him. Most of them stayed embedded in the earth, but the ones through his knee and shoulder slid out with excruciating slowness as the heavier end pulled them from his flesh.

His leaned heavily on Stiles whose hands were shaking and clenched in the fabric of Derek’s torn shirt.

“I’ve dreamed a thousand times over that she was dead, now tell me this is real,” Stiles demanded harshly.

“It’s real,” Derek repeated tiredly, slowly taking his own weight on his sore legs, “But who was that?”

Stiles ignored his question and still didn’t seem to believe him. He grabbed Derek’s hand and threaded their fingers together. He held their clasped hands up between them. His mouth moved silently over numbers as he counted the ten digits.

Derek leaned his forehead into Stiles’s as he said, as much sincerity and assurance as he could pack into the words, “It’s real, Stiles.”

Stiles’s eyes darted feverishly between Derek’s, like he was trying to catch one of them lying.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered, his breathing ragged and fast.

“Tell that to Scott,” Derek chuckled weakly.

As though he’d forgotten him completely, Stiles disengaged from Derek and whipped his head over to his unconscious friend. He scooped his weapon off the ground and raced across to Scott. Derek followed more slowly on still unsteady legs. Stiles smashed the projectiles holding Scott and dropped his weapon once more to pull the barely conscious teen off the tree.

Derek drew level with them, but his eyes were drawn downward. The weapon was no longer red. It was clear and easy to see now as it had not been before. There was an imprint of Stiles’s hand on the hollow, thin glass rod where he’d just been holding it, but no other marks that Derek could see. The two ends were scooped in opposite directions, one facing up and the other down. It seemed completely harmless.

He reached slowly out to touch the smooth surface. As his fingertips made contact a high screech echoed in his head. He yanked his hand back like he’d been burnt, his ears ringing and a headache building behind his left eye.

“What the hell is this thing,” Derek asked, his voice harsh with the new and strange pain.

Stiles was pulling Scott’s arm around his shoulder. Scott was barely responsive, his eyelids fluttering and his legs barely supporting him.

Stiles glanced at Derek then his eyes dipped sharply down to the weapon. There was something dangerous about him again for a second. Derek took a decisive step sideways to break Stiles's line of sight and Scott groaned weakly. The two combined seemed to pull Stiles out of whatever place he’d gone to in his head.

A dry chuckle came from Stiles as said, “Don’t touch it, does weird things to your head.”

Derek stared at him, but Stiles wouldn’t look at him. His eyes were trained on the forest floor and there was something dark in his expression Derek wasn’t sure he wanted to dig into.

Stiles readjusted Scott carefully and said, with a hint of impatience, “I could use some help with him.”

 

 

“I can’t believe they’ve been operating right under our noses and we haven’t noticed, but it’s a pretty open and shut case with your testimony and all the evidence your notes lead us to,” the Sheriff told Stiles, “We managed to link them to several other abductions and murders in the last ten years as well. They’re going to get what’s coming to them.”

Stiles nodded once in understanding before his eyes returned to the dark landscape out the window of the cruiser. He bit into a curly fry with little enthusiasm, like he didn’t even taste it. His dad watched this lackluster display for several seconds, torn. He put his drink down and reached his hand slowly over. Stiles didn’t react when his father gripped his shoulder gently.

“You’re home now,” he assured his son gently, “for real this time.”

Stiles was silent for a minute before his own hand drifted up to touch his father’s, like it would shatter if he wasn’t careful.

“I don’t know about that,” Stiles muttered.

“What do you mean,” the Sheriff asked, fear clenching at his stomach.

Stiles heaved a heavy sigh and his hand wrapped more tightly over his father’s. “It just doesn’t feel real most of the time,” Stiles answered.

The Sheriff was torn, overjoyed and relieved that Stiles was finally talking to him but his huge failure as both a cop and a parent weighed down his heart.

“That happens in these kinds of situations. Just give it time,” he assured him, though the words could have been meant for either of them.

Stiles nodded, but the motion was automatic and stiff. His father swallowed back the lump in his throat with all he had, determined to be there for him now.

“And you know I’m always here to talk if you need me,” he said, his voice shaking, “I love you, son.”

“I know, Dad,” Stiles said, sounding very far away.

 

 

“So,” Scott started awkwardly, trying to make a joke of it but coming off a little more shaken than usual, “Do you still want to kill me?”

Stiles surveyed Scott for a long moment. His eyes were still empty of that vitality he’d possessed before his abduction, but they were not that cold, bored disinterest he’d shown the last time Scott had been in his room.

“Only on every other day that ends in y,” Stiles said, an oddly forced note in his voice like he was trying to recreate a performance he barely remembered.

Scott took heart from the attempt though, smiling tentatively. “Do you want to do something normal,” he asked, extending the invitation like an olive branch.

“Normal,” Stiles repeated the word slowly like he didn’t really believe it could exist, “Like what? Hunt down some witches or something?”

Scott laughed as he said, “Maybe. Or we can just watch a movie, play some video games.”

 

 

“I went back for that weapon after I left you and Scott to the police, but it wasn’t there,” Derek said, his voice casual and inquiring on the surface but an accusation lay underneath it.

Stiles didn’t respond. His eyes were unnervingly blank and unwavering as he held eye contact with Derek. It felt like a challenge, but there was nothing else about him that suggested at anything strange. Still, Derek almost wanted to look away first, the ghost of the need to flee heating his limbs. Derek waited, but as the seconds dragged into minutes it became clear that Stiles was not going to respond.

With no other input, Derek continued his line of thought, asking what had been nagging at him since that moment, “Why do I get the feeling you’re still involved with them somehow?”

Stiles blinked twice at him before his eyes drifted away disinterestedly. It felt like a dismissal, but Derek could tell there was something to this.

“You worry too much, Derek,” Stiles said, bored.

“I know you’re hiding something,” Derek said, barely keeping his voice level.

Stiles was quiet for another long moment, so long that Derek almost started to speak again. Stiles beat him to it, his voice quiet as he said, “You know, it was you that kept me sane when they were breaking me. They even made me hate my Dad, but they didn’t seem to think you mattered to me at all.”

Stiles shuddered involuntarily. Derek didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t how he’d imagined this conversation going.

He remained silent and Stiles continued in monotone after a pause, “I know they care about me, Scott and Dad and everyone, and I used to care about them too, but looking at them sometimes just makes me sick.” Stiles spat the last word with an odd venom Derek was not familiar with in Stiles’s voice.

Stiles’s eyes slid back to him and Derek felt frozen in his intense stare. “I still don’t really trust you, but it’s easier than it is to trust them. So, I’ll only say this once,” Stiles let his sentence hang delicately in the air. He approached Derek on light feet that barely made a sound as he moved. Suddenly, he was in Derek’s space, pushing back against him with nothing but his presence.

“Don’t look into this. I won’t bring trouble to your door if you don’t get involved,” Stiles’s words were gentle, a request and a promise. Derek could still feel the weight of a threat somewhere within them, but it seemed far away as though it wasn’t necessarily a threat from Stiles.

Derek wanted to puzzle this out, but he also wanted to back down from his line of questioning. He’d had enough trouble for a lifetime and he could smell this ugly can of worms a mile away. Still, he couldn’t just let this go though, he’d failed Stiles enough.

“I’m already involved,” Derek said with conviction, matching Stiles’s push into his space until he was intimidatingly close, the two only a hair’s breath away from touching.

Stiles tilted his head in the ghost of curiosity as his eyes roved over Derek’s determined expression. He leaned closer, his lips parting softly as he murmured, “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”

The scent that was now washing over Derek had the hint of Stiles to it, stronger than it had been since he'd come back. Derek’s eyes wandered of their own accord down Stiles’s face to his mouth. He could recall so clearly the taste of him. It was heady and Derek found himself wanting to close that last, minute distance between them.

He mentally shook some clarity back into his thoughts as he made a promise and a threat of his own, “I will figure this out.”

“I’ll have to keep you occupied with other things then,” Stiles said, pulling Derek in.

The tension that had always seemed to coat the air between them exploded as their lips met. That spark that seemed to constantly run under Stiles’s skin before was back as he wrapped his arms around Derek’s neck and pressed in closer. Derek grabbed Stiles with more strength than he meant to and lifted him off his feet. Stiles seemed ready for it though, his legs wrapping around Derek’s waist easily. There was no finesse to it; they kissed clumsy, fast, and hungry as though making up for all the time they hadn’t been doing this.

Derek was the one to finally pull back. It took a disproportionate force of will. Their breathing was heavy and mixed tantalizingly in the inches between them. Stiles’s eyes were bright and eager and Derek had to take a second to soak in the change. The life it brought back to his face was something that Derek had almost forgotten he possessed.

**Author's Note:**

> Does it feel finished to you? I'm not sure myself, but that's all that I have and likely all that I will. Take it as you choose and do with it what you will.


End file.
